Guild Wars 2

Wish I’d made the subject of this thread “Gliding a shambles?” as clearly the shambles was in my head – apologies to Devs etc.

Anyhow, I’ve learnt a huge amount from the posts here and didn’t realize the implications gliding would bring. Suddenly nearly everything is more complex. I’m quite an old guy, over 60, and for some of us oldies it takes time to figure new stuff out – at least its fun.

I even watched a couple of YouTube videos where groups were gliding in to attack their enemy. You could see all the dead who needed rezzing – so from my combat healer perspective I could either just swoop down to heal them or else keep going on foot and take another minute or so to reach them. Guess we know what commanders and sane people would do.

I’ve just been in to my HoT account and glided in Desert Borderlands – lots of fighting there but tonight will go back to my F2P account and be a foot solder so I can see how it affects me and what the new tactics are – should be interesting.

Times, they are a changing, as always.
At least many happy memories as one poster said.

I have to admit that last night in WvW chat I never saw anyone criticising the gliding – everyone seemed to be having fun. Seemed I was the only misery guts.

I died half a dozen times or more in the mass fights near NWT – yet it seemed a drunken shambles to me – I was sober – perhaps a drink might have helped me.

Just a culture shock for me – WvW so very different to a few days ago when I knew the distances to places, shortcuts, how long to get there, and whether I might make it in time.

It never occurred to me that a lot of PvE’rs would come – not sure how that will affect the queues but hope they have lots and lots of fun, and they come to stay.

Think I’ll give it a few days rest, see how things settle down then go in again – try to readjust – try to figure out new tactics, try to have fun

Yes, I do know lots of people love the new gliding in WvW but as one who has been playing WvW for a few years now this gliding has completely ruined the game for me.

By the way, I can glide, so my disbelief and disappointment has nothing to do with so-called Pay to Win. I do have a HoT account on Fissure of Woe and Free-2-Play account on Anvil Rock.

Last night in WvW was a complete shambles with people gliding all over the place and enemies just jumping of the tallest cliffs in order to escape.

At our Citadel, instead of running down the steps, some of our own players were simply gliding down to the North West Tower so giving our enemies there little time to recover – very unfair to our enemies. The distances are already relatively short in the Alpine Borderlands but gliding has made them insanely short.

Seems no where is safe now – earlier so many lonely paths between steep cliffs where you knew you were relatively safe unless a stealthed player was about, but now people can just glide down from cliffs to you. Doesn’t matter whether its an enemy coming to attack you or a friendly coming to help you, we need distance to matter in WvW.

Lag, what a terrible time last night, teleporting to our Citadel while standing right outside was taking 30 seconds or more, sometimes a minute. There wasn’t a queue so the map wasn’t full. Perhaps the lag was just a coincidence or my network route had problems.

Sorry I’ve got no positive suggestions as still in shock.

Anyhow, for me, a truly wonderful amazing game ruined. Guess I’ll read more, give it while and reflect, perhaps its not as bad as I think.

P.S.
I’ve just seen some more posts where people love the gliding – could be I’m a dinosaur.

Yunjii Sun.3512:

Hello everyone,

We’ve been outnumbered on Aurora Glade for a week now.

What’s happening? Were are all the usual WvW players?

Thank you for your post because otherwise I wouldn’t have gone in last night and had a lot of fun – tough fights – but several time we beat their blob and did some great defending. Actually their blob often looked well organized and their AoE effects were devastating to many of us so clearly they have some good leaders and troops.

I’m a guilty one because a while back the AG server looked good so I opened up a free account on NA server Anvil Rock as I wanted a challenge – they are bottom. Ironically they are teamed with Jade Quarry so still not with the underdogs. I was also fed up with the many guild-only tags with lots of dueling so tried a change.

I’m Fissure of Woe and when teamed with AG it looked as if our population was healthy. However, there are 17 people on my ‘friends’ list yet most of them I rarely see log on – perhaps they have gone to different servers with new accounts or their lives have changed. Some JQ members were saying a well known commander has just returned from Elder Scrolls Online where they were doing that version of WvW – perhaps the same with other servers.

Last night when I left for bed we had just been defeated at the Lord in SM for the second time – was a very close call and perhaps a few more troops would have enabled a win. I got the impression that our commander and others were happy with the fights last night – I was.
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By the way, a couple of year back FoW was the underdogs against Underworld and Blacktide – our numbers were low and they often farmed us. However we had some commanders who did hit-and-run and frequent map changes – hard work but could change the color of the map and keep the enemy guessing. Of course the Desert BL complexities now put many players off.

Yes I’m late on this but not long ago I spent most of 15 minutes underwater fighting two guys who were chasing me relentlessly in the canals near our Keep on Alpine Borderlands.

They ambushed me on the land and as my build was Guardian combat healer it didn’t have much DPS so I went into the canals. Under water I nearly downed one but in the end the effort of going around in circles and trying to ambush them physically exhausted me – i’m over 60 and by the 15 minutes mark just couldn’t control the keyboard and mouse. They finished me off on the land but it was an exciting run for me.

For me, those canals are wondeful place to escape to and very occasionally I beat someone there – most likely newbies or someone drunk

By the way, I don’t have an underwater build, but will certainly try to set something up now.

Perhaps changing the screen resolution might help some players because it made a huge difference for me.

I had very bad lag and in 30 player fights my frame rate was down to 4 per second and the keyboard was virtually unresponsive. In much larger fights frame rate was perhaps 1 every 5 seconds which made me consider taking a break from WvW until I could afford a better PC.

The problem seemed to be at my end because when shadowing other players such as the commander – after my screen finally refreshed they would be further and further away from me.

Some other WvW players suggested turning down my graphics – so I turned my screen resolution from 1600×1200 down to 1280×1024 and also turned down much of the graphics detail. The GW2 display is now squashed but the lag is very low and keys respond very quicky now – today I’ve been in a few 80 or so player battles and there was virtually no lag.

My PC detals are:-
– Intel Quad Core (Q905) 2.83GHz
– 8GB RAM
– video card – HD6870 1GB RAM
– ethernet is quite fast at about 8MB per sec
– ping to GW2 is about 38mS.

By the way, not sure if a player’s role will have much affect on lag. I’m support Guardian so just shadow core players and try to heal empower them etc – i rarely ever target enemy players so perhaps things are easier for me. I’m also back to clicking with the mouse again as can no longer cope with the keyboard – guess its different for all of us.

I chose FoW a few years ago because they were bottom of the league and figured they needed help.

FoW is still home to me because of the the people I met on it and the times we had together. Seeing familiar names make a huge difference and even though there don’t seem so many of us about these days at least it feels like home.

About server identities – I’m passionate about FoW but really love to play with people from other servers when we get grouped together. While in a squad with a quiet moment I usually check who is from which server – sometimes they might have been enemies who hammered us but now we are all fighting together on the same side

Another update – Xpadder – very UNRELIABLE tonight – 30 minutes in EB and in a large Zerg fight – some of the buttons didn’t give any response. I relogged and some of buttons were still broken.

Earlier, I’d just entered EB, only been in 30 seconds and triggering swift caused an internal error in GW2.

Guess I’l have to try AutoHotKey

Straegen.2938:

I dabble with a gamepad from time to time even though I still prefer mouse/keyboard. With the Action Camera mode turned on it works pretty well. I use a standard XBox controller and map the buttons to key presses via AutoHotKey. Even under heavy load during SM zerg fights, keys work as well as the keyboard with this setup.

In these types of games, 3rd party programs are always a use at your own risk. I personally don’t think it is an issue since it is mapping one key from the keyboard to one press on the gamepad.

This is what I started with and customized to work with Action Camera:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyHcobjYfT0

I finally managed to get my F710 gamepad working quite reliably with Xpadder.
It works in mass fights with no missing key events. Only thing, after an hour or two some events vanish so either I just restart GW 2 or if in a critial period go back to using keyboard and mouse. Strange though, with F for interact, Xpadder works immediatly everytime whereas my keyboard sometimes doesn’t respond.

I used the info from here to get Xpadder set up:-

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/players/XBox360-controller-mapping-for-Guild-Wars-2-Enjoy/first
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By the way, the current gamepad key bindings are not very intuitive for me but still much much faster than keyboard and mouse. The setup for PGP was more natural and hardly needed thinking about. Now I just need to figure how Xpaddder’s settings work, then try to get those PGP keybindings working with it.

About PGP – I tried using an app called Prio to raise its interrupt/response level but PGP’s level was already set to very high and wouldn’t go any higher.

About AutoHotKey – I must have setup something wrong because it gave severe problems on my Windows x64 machne – text from its keybindings kept spamming my apps even when GW2 wasn’t running. Later I might try and figure that out.

Conclusions – for me life is much easier using gamepad – especially fighting and exploring. Whereas for laying seige or interacting with Inventory then keyboard and mouse are superior.

Andronica Farwyn.7684:

Logitech G13 gamepad works perfectly in WvW. Good in combination with Logitech G600 mouse. No need to use the keyboard for anything except chat.

Thank you. Someone recommended this to me a week or so ago, said they had good success with it. I might yet go with this although the F710 was awseome – except in fights.

My character is a DH trapper yet now I’m often the only one in our group playing this. A few weeks ago there were so many of us that I felt redundant.

I’m Fissure of Woe tier 8 so perhaps things are different elsewhere.

By the., since HoT release the damage output seems to have been greatly reduced – it used to kill NPCs very quickly but now its taking appreciably longer. I’m not complaining because compared to Guardian its traps still seems super powerful.

Another thing about its armour. After lots of fights in zergs even though I got killed a lot the armour never needed repairing. Now even small fights and it needs repairing.

Perhaps its receiving a better or fairer balance now.

I’m still really a newbie so don’t understand all the stats etc – just knew how long it used to take to kill NPCs so in the hands of better players perhaps DH coud be awesome?

Perhaps the following might be interesting to anyone wanting to using a game pad in GW2 and WvW. It probably applies to PvE and PvP also. I got mixed results.

By luck I found an old Logitech F710 game pad that I used to play The Witcher 3 so decided to see if if would improve my game play in GW2, especially WvW. I’m an older player, was a clicker, but now use KB and mouse, yet i’m still clumsy especially during a fight.

I used the trial version of Pinacle Game Profiler and the information from here:-

http://pinnaclegameprofiler.com/forum/showthread.php?25192-Guild-Wars-2
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There is also Xpadder but there isn’t a trial version available.

Here is a comparison of the two:-

http://www.xpadder-vs-pgp-vs-j2k.com/index.html
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Anyhow, I spent perhaps 3 hours on Saturday morning in Heart of Mists setting it up and practicing.

The F710 had just about everything I needed for fighting in WvW – movement, camera, weapons and utilities, weapon swap, function keys, targeting, look back, map etc. It used single button press for weapons and hold button for utilities.

In Heart of the Mists playing by myself it was wonderful – really fast movement, firing off weapons so easily, placing traps, looking backwards etc. After an hour I was much much better than using my keyboard and Logitech G300 mouse combination.

In the early evening I went into EB where there was lots of action, really large fights between our side and the others – many dozens of players.
Well it was a disaster for me – got to the fights easily enough then found the gamepad was useless – movement and fighting just stopped – the buttons either took a long time to trigger the desired action or nothing happened at all. It wasn’t just lag because the keyboard and G300 mouse were working great. Such a huge disappointment

I think the PGP software places the game pad key events in the Windows events queue but somehow when the machine is heavily loaded as when 2 zergs are fighting then the the key events are delayed or perhaps the software never creates them or more likely PGP is slow in creating them. Perhaps someone else knows what the problem is or how to get this working?
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My machine is Windows 7 x64, quad core, 8GB ram.
If PGP worked during fights then it would be perfect for me.

I tried this today 4 times – used 12 Commander rings and rare items above 60 but no luck – Mystic Forge gave me weapons worth between 2 and 10 silver each time.

By the way, the Commander rings cost about 1400 karma each but as I have 1.75M karma it was still fun to try.

Loosmaster.8263:

Dawdler.8521:

Loosmaster.8263:

DH traps are invisible until triggered.

Traps on all classes are invisible until triggered.

Thats why its called a trap.

I know that. Was just saying in relation to the topic that they don’t leave red circles.

I didn’t know that – but now I see why my group ask me to place traps in certain places and also why some players activate my traps even when I thought they must look so obvious.

Actually would be really helpful to see different colored circles for different damages and traps.

Last night in EB the enemy blob put down so many circles, and overlapping circles it was just chaos for a lesser player like me. Trying to move between them and minimise the unknown damage type was very difficult. Some of the circles hardly affected me but others gave heavy damage. Different colors would help us to know which to avoid depending on our builds.

Not sure if it would unbalance fights or spoil game play. On the other hand it would give us more info about the composition of our opponents and visa versa.

By the way, i play Dragon Hunter and have no idea what my traps look like to opponents – need to check that out.

I really like the idea of salvaging siege because it would allow individuals to store siege somewhere so when the enemy takes all their camps and fortifications they could still have access to some supply. Even better would be if Commanders could have a lock on it and allow only their members to access it.

Perhaps we could place extra seige inside buildings or else hide it outside in the woods and hope the enemy doesn’t find then destroy it. It would give an extra dimension to the game – both for defenders/attackers needing to build siege and for solo roamers hoping to find hidden the siege. This might be boon for the huge Desert Borderlands as it has so many places to hide stuff.

Not sure how it would work in practice as changes can have knock-on effects and it might upset the balance of supply but I hope something likes this comes about soon.

By the way, I love both defending and attacking but when hope of supply fades it becomes a desperate situation.

Samis.1750:

There’s a lot of great advice for the OP in this thread. As an older player who clicks quite a bit, I figure I would add my thoughts which are as follows:

1. You need to find the right build/profession combo for your skill/dexterity level. Bear in mind that no build works well in all circumstances (solo roaming, small group roaming, zerging, etc.) and it is always tough to deal people running small group or solo ganking build, when you are trying to run a large group friendly build.

2. Build: You have 2 stun break (one on demand) which is good but unless I am mistaken, only a condition clear tied to your heals (now improved in the patch to remove 2 conditions, but still rather minimal, especially with only 14k hit points). There’s a lot of condition roamers out there, many of whom who are highly mobile and/or have some stealth. You’re also running a meditation trait with no meditation skills slotted aside from Renewed Focus which is on a long cooldown, .

3,. Healing Gear: You have quite a bit of healing gear in your build, but are not using staff, which offers a good return on investment (1:1 on staff 3). On the other hand, you do have selfless daring heal on dodge trait which does offer a good return , but because your precision is low, it’s not going to trigger as often as you want (and the low precision kind of wastes your investment in ferocity). You are running heal on aegis (.5 ratio so healing does help there) which does synergize well with your trap, trap trait, retreat utility and renewed focus, though you should slot shelter when you are running around the map in small groups (or perhaps always as it does synergize with your heal on aegis trait and I believe heals allies as well?)

I’d think about swapping the really expensive toxic stones for some cheap 5/3 precision food if you’re still equipping cleric gear and taking the Honor line to bump your precision up a bit. I’d also dump the boon duration food for something different as you’re not using staff (though it does help your swiftness) and I’d consider changing the runes as well. I’d run melandru if you want to go defensive, and pair it with the saffron bread to give you -45% stun/condition duration reduction. If you’re the guy dying often, it should be your allies who are running the mercy runes grins.

As far as camp flipping goes, healing gear doesn’t really help you much. While it will give you some sustain, if will also take the camp much NPCs way longer to die. With such low precision in a power build, you’re not doing much damage – “hitting like wet noodle is the phrase often used in this forum”. Looking at this another way, if you rolled a ranger, equipped an exotic longbow and some exotic armor and then went to take a camp you would realize how easy it was compared to your current build that you would start chanting Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now”, a cultural reference that you would no doubt get as opposed to some of the young kids in this thread.

Feel free to whisper me in game if you want to discuss things more.

Thanks Samis – a really great post – lots of practical details – I am actually printing out every post so I can cross reference them to make things easier to follow up.

“MaximillianVonSchatten.6278” also talked a lot about staff so I’m going with that.

I bought some foods but keep forgetting to use them before a fight – disappointing when it seemed they might have made the difference I needed.

By the way, you also Click a Bit – so understand the problems, especially of older players.

MaximillianVonSchatten.6278:

Sounds like you are getting closer. A reminder that AH is much better in a small group since your heal is based on boons you are giving to your team mates (a good staff empower can be better than a healing skill); running as a single, I would stay on a medi-build.

The build you cited is an excellent boon giver but has little in the way of damage or “selfish” protection, both of which you need for single roaming.

I recommend perusing the Guardian forums and Metabattle builds for this. Metabattle is by no means the bible as I’m learning but it gives you a better idea of the synergies of skills / weapons / runes / food etc.. My roaming build is a combination of the “Meditation DPS” build and the “DH-Meditrapper” build in the “Conquest” category.

As for closing distances to opponents, I typically start with Judge’s Intervention to plop myself on my opponent . This really helps with dropping traps and whirling blades on top of them before they know what’s happening.

Also you can immobolize opponents with both scepter and GS (and DH spear for that matter).

I tried running torch in WvW and found that I needed the extra protection that a Focus provides instead. Shield of Wrath is a great bailout skill to let you recover from an engagement as you figure out what to do next.

Thank you, from now on for groups I’m going to use GS and Staff. While for soloing camps etc I’ll use GS and Scepter/Focus. I’ve just now bought a focus as never actually used one in a fight – Shield of Wrath looks just what I need. The Long Bow, except for shooting scouts, cannons etc now doesn’t seem that useful for me.

Your quote here says it all – “it gives you a better idea of the synergies of skills / weapons / runes / food etc”. Trying to figure this out for my own character then trying to second guess what my opponent has is greatly helped by this thread

Thanks also for the tips on actual fighting – tonight I’m going to practice in EB for a few hours and see how the weapon changes plus Honor works.

Serious.6940:

I used to use an old style Razer MMO mouse. When it died I got a Logitech G600 and later a new style Razer. The in curved keypad made the latter unusable for me.

I am now using a Utechtsmart Venus, very similar to the Logitech but about half the cost.

The problem with MMO gaming mice is the size of the keys on the pad, inevitably they are quite small and may not suit your hand. They are also handed, so not really suitable for left handed players.

Razer do have the Orbweaver gaming pad, which I regard as an excellent option, it makes dodging and jumping much easier for me (I have the small button above the pad bound to V). There are other options too so have a search for others.

I suffer Osteoarthritis and fibromyalgia, without the pad and MMO mouse I wouldn’t be able to play GW2 at all.

It’s also worth remembering that some of the people who play GW2 use exploits. Others are extremely skillful players of WvW who have been honing their skills for over 3 years. You have to accept that sometimes you are going to die quick.

Forget small pick up groups, find a good WvW guild, learn from them all they have to teach you. Lastly if you are still communicating by typing get on your world’s comms system and use it.

It is also worth leveling other classes if you haven’t already. Guardian isn’t necessarily the best or only choice and one of the others may suit you better. I started with necro, moved to guard and now mostly use a ranger.

Thank you for sharing and detailing how you manage to play this hectic game. Sounds like some of this might work for me – I already have the MMO mouse but the Orbweaver looks an excellent addition – I’ll look into this and try to see how it might work for me.

Regarding my other classes – just logged in my very first character – a Necro – it used to seem great until i went to proper WvW and then got killed a lot – now I can’t even remember its traits or weapons etc. Think i’ll try it over the weekend as it will give a new perspective.

About our guild, i’ve seen them discussing various classes in chat – and how they can attack etc – bits are starting to make sense. Seems they have recommended guild builds as well.

MaximillianVonSchatten.6278:

Not sure what you have for gear or weapons, but for a tank frontliner the AH build is still the best IMHO (Altruistic Healing + Pure of Voice).

I have 2 guards, one is the Traveler Rune medi-DH mentioned above for roaming and my main is an AH tank w/ Hoelbrak runes.

I still use staff/GS in WvW. I’ve switched out the virtues line for the DH and run the healing trap and one other trap, picking traits for maximum survivability and condi clearing. Not sure at this point of DH or Virtues is the way to go; the jury is still out on this.

If you really wanna bunker up go with staff + mace/shield – this one is almost 100% support and probably not the best for roaming or small scale parties.

I was using Soldier’s armour with Hoelbrak runes. For weapons LongBow & GreatSword. This seemed fine for taking camps with LB good for scouts and GS for Supervisor and Guards. Problems occur when a player turns up as my LB seems useless and I rarely get near them to use GS – so sometimes I replace LB with Sceptre and Torch as very occasionally I get lucky – chain opponent then jump to them with GS and use traps – rarely beat them though. Actually – i still don’t appreciate the rationals behind choosing weapons and matching optimising them against opponent types.
My build was based this from a previous poster:-

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vVEQJARWnsABtCh9CBWdC8DhlEiS+5n+r/aZDgDIbG+vAE-TlSDwAwU/ZwRAQvmgEPAAa7PAwEUUlfw1BI5SAoQJIZAK2CA-w
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After your previous post I’m using Soldiers armour with Dolyak Runes, and using GS plus Sceptre and Torch. My build is still DH Virtues and Valor but I don’t yet know the theory behind this – need to think about it. Think I’ll try you AH build with DH Valor Honor tonight and try to figure how it works.

By the way, i used to play Necro when in EotM and had more success with 1v1 fighting as Necro did a lot of ranged damage. However once I moved to EB / Alpine Borderlands it didn’t work for me because there are many more higher skilled opponents there – thats why i chose Guardian combat healer – i couldn’t fight so tried to heal people and keep them alive.

MaximillianVonSchatten.6278:

I read about your problems with the mouse buttons. I tend to only have one skill bound to the side mouse buttons; usually the one that requires targeting (so I can stay on the move with the keyboard as I drop it). I do use the other side buttons primarily for targeting (nearest target, next target, calling target). This way I’m not accidently hitting skills that I didn’t mean to use. I then keybind my other skills closer to the WASD area for easier access with my left hand. Put your most important skills (ie heal) on the button that is easiest and most reliable for you to find (for me it’s T, as I have my virtues at Q,E,R).

As for your slow reflexes, there are options. I can’t remember which class you are playing but some options may be:

a) tank frontliner – become the meat shield your zerg needs; focus on surviving and drawing enemy attacks to you. Most times you can casually rotate skills and dodges to stay alive doing this (at least as a guard that I am familiar with); max your armor and vitality and don’t worry about damage; sit back and laugh as people try to bring you down. Look at some commander builds if you want to really maximize this.

b) backline damage dealer – get that necro or revenant rolling; sit back and spam aoe as others protect you.

If you are looking to roam it’s a little more difficult as reflexes are needed; for this I suggest practicing your burst combos and your “escape” combos until you have them down. This take a lot of practice and familiarity with your skills.

Or just go mesmer roamer and run your face across the keyboard during a fight; that always works too.

EDIT: I just read your original post; are you still running dragon hunter? For roaming I still use a meditation build but switched out the virtues to DH with pretty good results. Pretty much all of my buttons heal me AND deal damage. Also, don’t underestimate the importance of armor and health in any WvW build; you need some sustain in a 1v1 fight, especially with a low-health guardian. I always switch out my GS stats to Soldiers when I enter WvW and sometimes even the amulet on my roamer if I am running with groups of 5 or more.

Thankyou, I’m still playing DH and trying to put out mostly damage along with some tank for taking on NPCs. Due to my slow reactions the only time I down or kill someone in 1v1 is when they can’t take much damage and make a mistake by getting very close to me. Even though both traps are on my left two mouse buttons, my reactions are just too slow to catch anyone except for a newbie. My movement/skill practice has plateaued and just won’t go quicker.

Your idea on tank frontliner sounds good, stay alive long enough to put up some kind of fight. In a melee it might take some damage away from my group or else allow me to interefere in play and distract opponents while other members attack them.

I’ll also rethink my key & mouse bindings.

By the way, I do know this isn’t easy and takes lots of practice. I have about 3000 Achievement Points but many of my group much more, most over 4000, several over 10000 – they have put a huge amount of work in. So I shouldn’t really complain.

At least I’ve got Tank Frontliner to try out tonight

Sorry to bring up an old thread but this might help some clickers, especially the older ones like me.

Don’t give up because I’m sure very few of you are as bad as I am, and if I could improve then so could you.

Actually, I’m changing my aims because its clear I’ll never be a good fighter – simply far too slow. Despite all the improvements to my:-
– keybindings
– G300s mouse
– character builds
– better armour/weapons
– and practice practice
I’m still hopeless against most players although definitely improved against NPCs.

I have put a lot of practice into movement and fighting but I’m simply too slow to move and to figure out what is going on around me either in a 1v1 or a small melee.

Last night I knew something was wrong after fighting in EB & Borderlands, so looked at some of my medical tests from 2001 – my motor skill speed was 12th percentile, and a university motor skill test in 1974 had me bottom of class – so slow they said i must be dead. Thats almost 90% of people naturally faster than me, plus WvW tends to attract skilled players, many of them Ninja-like.

Anyhow, thats me, but for everyone else:- if I could improve by following the amazing advice in this thread then surely most other players could make far larger improvements and perhaps become Elite – so don’t give up hope
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There is still lots for me to do in WvW – i’m in a nice friendly guild with some roamers – perhaps one day might even take a Lord by myself and capture a tower – still a lot of fun stuff to learn – just hope they don’t make NPCs more intelligent though

Chaba.5410:

Still good reading:
http://taugrim.com/2012/06/27/guide-to-guild-wars-2-keybinds/

I utilized the principles from Taugrim to come up with my own schema that was comfortable for me (no overreaching) and worked on all classes.

I could really have done with these key bindings last night in EB – there were about 8 of us against a slightly larger force, in a number of fights over 45 minutes or so. I noticed during the fights that my charater was essentially static – often caught in AoE(Area of Affect) and took lots of damage as I tried to figure out what to do, who to attack etc. From now on in these type fights I’ll use these keybindings to constantly move and avoid or minimise AoE plus dodge as well. This probably sounds obvious to many, but wasn’t to me.

Chaba.5410:

Still good reading:
http://taugrim.com/2011/04/07/guide-to-strafing-movement-and-keybindings/

http://taugrim.com/2012/06/27/guide-to-guild-wars-2-keybinds/

I utilized the principles from Taugrim to come up with my own schema that was comfortable for me (no overreaching) and worked on all classes.

Thank you, I’m now using some of your key bindings- can now easily turn in a circle , have dodge on old backward button, health on Q, etc. Need some practice now

Aggrostemma.1703:

I feel a bit bad now

I suggested this mouse for you…

I swear my Redragon works perfectly… The only wear I spotted is actually on the silk mousepad. One single thread around the edge sawing is sticking out about 5 millimeters….

That’s it!

My missis has a G300 but it’s way too small for my hand. It squeezes my fingers together too much.

And again:

I’m sorry for the bad advice :S

Hi Aggrostemma,

No, you certainly didn’t give bad advice, you gave great advice. Looks like a 1 in 20 chance or even less of getting a faulty one. If i’d ordered it a few minutes earlier or later, then probably would have received a working one and would be having fun with it right now. Life is often pot luck

By the way, i’m glad my first gaming mouse was a Redragon Perdition as now i understand about side buttons. One reason I didn’t re-order it was because one USA Amazon buyer managed to get 2 faulty ones in a row – and I’m desperate to get a working game mouse. Just hope the G300 actually works.

By the way, I received fantastic advice from many posts here – and I’m becoming a better and happier player (hard to be worse) but the state of Tier 8 WvW can be quite depressing – usually such low numbers in world – perhaps I’m in bed before the action starts. Guess I’l’ try to shadow a zerg commander in EotM.

Thank you again Aggrostemma

Aggrostemma.1703

Thank you for all the detail on how the skills work – these have slowly been dawning on me. I’ll have a look at that neutral mob-PvP golem to.

About my mouse, unfortunately it was was faulty – just bad luck. I tried it outside the game in Windows(x64) and it showed the delay fault. I also tried it in game, in a quiet area with no combat and the side buttons were interfering. For the first couple of hours that mouse seemed wonderful and I thought the problems were just my clumsiness but as I got better the issues became evident.

I’m sure the Redragon Perdition is a great mouse because before buying it I looked at reviews on both Amazon.com and .co.uk, over 2500 reviews, the vast majority very favorable. However a few percent received faulty ones and Amazon refunded them – they also refunded me very quickly. I notice even more expensive mice like Naga also deliver some faulty ones.

By the way, I’ve ordered at Logitech G300s – only 9 buttons, none on the side, but in my clumsy state should help me to get settled in combat while I concentrate on learning all the other things such as assessing my opponents etc.

I still like the Redragon, perhaps might even get another one, because for a while those side buttons made combat so much easier by taking ALL the spells off the keyboard.

Just thinking, i already miss those side buttons, will see how things go with the G300.

One thing though – although I’m slow, I’ll never go back to being a ‘clicker’, because using keyboard just seems so much easier now

KaporHabakuk.6219:

Malkom.5607:

My fighting against other players is such a shambles that I’m not sure how to improve it – by the way I’m a 61 year old guy and have never had fast reactions. Also I don’t really have instinct for weapons spells etc. I have been playing WvW for 18 months now so not a complete newbie.

A few days ago I joined someone to take camps in EB and on the way we met an ‘Elite’ player who killed me in 30s but took over 4 mins to beat my partner. When I arrived back my partner was finished off so I attacked the Elite player and he killed me in 10 secs. Frankly I don’t know what class he was or how he attacked me – it happened so fast. I was Dragon Hunter but have now gone back to combat healer setup with tougher armour, better healing but less DPS – at least I might be able to help keep my team mates alive.

After that fight my partner said he uses just keyboard for fighting whereas I use the mouse for clicking spells etc and just use keyboard mostly for movement. Perhaps a gaming mouse and a lot of practice with it might help me?

I thought the problems might be my slow reactions and lack of battle sense but now I think its also my poor understanding of weapon armour mechanics etc. A few days ago I was a kicked from a 3 man group because I didn’t put down the buffs they needed – I still don’t understand what they meant – acronyms .

WvW is still fun although I need to improve but where to start and what to focus on?
Would doing PvP help me?

Hello,i cant say how to improve your skill,maybe survivability,but i can offer you dueling partner,feel free to PM me,am bored lately anyway.This offer is purely for your excercise.Dont worry,i dont have ego isues,thou lil dance on dead cant ever hurt “just kidding”.Cya on battlefield.

Thats a very kind offer, thank you.

Things were going well untill my mouse arrived on Saturday – a Redragon Perdition. It seemed wonderful for first couple of hours – then unfortnately it seems to have some faults – side numeric keys are very unreliable and pressing 9 for example often activates 8. Also after pressing any one of them the other side buttons don’t respond until a second or so has passed – spamming them makes them all unresponsive for several seconds.

Been out tonight in EB – was killed 3 times in 5 mins – using keyboard alone I would have lasted longer in those fights than when using this mouse. I need to figure what to do with key mapping and mouse. Think i’ll sleep and see how it goes tomorrow.

Anyhow, see you about

It h

FrouFrou.4958:

Malkom.5607:

so glad I asked for help – last year when our guild went, then Alpine Borderlands went, it seems like a depression set in – now something to aim for. Perhaps might even look for a guild.

Not sure which server you are in, but most servers do have a community guild you can join. It’s a bit softer landing than trying to figure out things on your own and helps you to find like-minded people to play with.

Thank you, I’m on Fissure of Woe Tier 8 and luckily I’ve had a few nice guild invites – a nice one since this thread started. I was hoping our old guild might re-activate but think with members’ real life changes, plus Desert Borderlands and some other game issues that guild won’t be re-activating any time soon, perhaps never.

Apart from being a ‘Clicker’, think the root of my problems was a terribly unbalanced game play – unlike most other players I rarely looked at my character stats. When I did login, it was straight into WvW with zero time spent on character development such as armour, weapons, crafting or even practicing how to fight.
Clearly I got lazy, had information overload, and because I couldn’t understand traits, skills, build or even opponents classes, the fun option was just to play WvW.

These posts have completely changed everything for me, from keyboard usage to character development – this game is fantastic now with many more things to do – and after just a few hours i’m a wiser better player than before – still below average but getting better

By the way, just been into Heart of Mists and found those NPCs – got downed by Engineer NPC – then killed near Lord. Now will change builds etc, practice practice, and have fun.

tappajabob.5983:

When I see a dragonhunter in large scale wvw I expect he is something like this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVEQJARWnsABtCh9CBWdC8DhlEiS+5n+r/aZDgDIbG+vAE-TlSDwAwU/ZwRAQvmgEPAAa7PAwEUUlfw1BI5SAoQJIZAK2CA-w

Explaining basics of the build

hide spoiler

This build is called something like “AH – Frontliner”. AH means Altruistic Healing (trait) that gives guardian a small amount of healing when he gives boons to allies. Assuming the guardian has enough allies near him/her it turns every skill into mini-heal. For example “F1 skill” that trows the spear also gives might to allies and can heal the user for around 1000 hp. Staff skill 4 “empower” can in total heal 6000 hp. AH helps guardian live in those long team fights.

As a frontline guardian this build supports its allies by giving them Stability. “Stabi” prevents opponents from getting stunned/dazed/knocked down. Shout “Stand your Ground” gives 5s to you and your allies within shout range. “F3 – Shield of Courage” also gives some stabi, but more importantly creates this shield in front that is strong enough to deflect any bombardment. (Unless its unblockable or comes from behind the shield!).

If you want to get into large scale wvw it would be good build to try out.

How to actually play the build in group

hide spoiler

In my experience most fights go something like this:

1. You follow the commander, try to stay as close to him as legal.
2. Commander spots enemy group and moves closer.
3. He/she asks for “Empower” or simply uses his/her’s own empower. At this point use your staff 4 skill.
4. You move even closer to the enemy. Stay with your brave commander. If you are close enough to cast your staff 3 “Symbol of Swiftness” into enemy feel free to do it. You can also cast staff 5 “Annoying Wall”. If you are able you can use F1 to pull an opponent into your group!
5. Either commanders calls for “stabi!” or just rushes into the enemy. At this point you use your stability shout or “F3 shield of justice” to make sure you can follow him.
6. Use a leap skill “F2” or “greatsword 3” to get to enemy. Use weapon skills 5 and 2 to damage opponents. Stay close to your commander.
7. Commander retreats. You follow him. You are most likely in need of heals. Commander calls for heals. Use staff 4 and 2 to heal as much as you can.
8. You most likely attack again and steps 4-8 keep repeating until either side is defeated.

How to stay alive?

hide spoiler

1. Avoid red circles and big AoE. Nothing can save you if you walk into necromancer’s “bomb”.
2. Active use of shelter, F3 and Reneved Focus to stay alive. You are not allowed to die before you have used them all.
3. Stay near allies. Lonely targets get picked of easily!
4. Continuous stream of small healing.

If I see a dragonhunter in small scale wvw I expect it to be more like this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVEQJARTlsAhqhY3QwcIwPELJE11yGAJQW+9fBo8zP9ZPA-T1hFwAr2fAwDA4k6PJuAAGV+dWXQVlgkCwclRA-w

This time they are more focused on self healing through “Meditations” and have sacrificed a lot of their group support and defense to achieve more damage. These dudes can wreck you in matter of seconds if they can land all of their attacks.

If my writing helps even one bit I am really happy.

This is really amazing and thank you for this.

I’ve had a quick look at both builds and will try them tomorrow – some more pieces of the jigsaw – more things are starting to make sense and I can see both the large holes in my build and the mis-match of accessories etc.

Thank you also for the tips and steps on following a commander – I have been looking for something like this for over a year but never found it. By the way, I have occasionally seen commanders asking for ‘Empower’ but didn’tknow what they meant – sometimes I miss the obvious.

Coinhead.7591:

I am curious about your build. This game isn’t called Build Wars 2 by accident and weak build can stop you from winning. If you want you could build your build here and share a link to it to us http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/ . Or you could just write down here everything that you run, or maybe take screenshots that show the stats you got and share it : )

Personally I learned to play guardian because a guildie saw me getting wrecked in duels and suggested to play a meditation guardian build. That build was really easy to play, in the beginning I just used utilites pretty randomly and still did well against normal opponents. After some time (long time xD) I learned to use my skills better.

BTW Did you know that in PVP lobby there are NPC’s that fight against you and you can practice with? They have one NPC for each real profession, 2 beasts and a lord with his crew. Profession NPC’s are easy, but you can practice your rotation on them. Beasts are powerful and new players often get destroyed by them. You should totally practice against the beasts! Lord and his friends are more difficult, if you want challenge take them on!

Thats a brilliant idea – thank you

Here is my build – i’ve learnt a lot by setting it up

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVEQJARTn8ABVdiddCmCB8DhlEiCbDygy8aZDgEQe5j+sH-T1gIABAoEUQ1fKZ/BSBYiwK-w

About armour – only 1 of my accessories are in the list – the rest aren’t in the list and are either ‘rare’ or ‘unique’ items with not very good stats compared to those available in the editor. Some of my accessories also have empty slots. My underwater gear isn’t listed either and also has empty slots.

About the results, it shows mine as being lower than they actually are – perhaps my unshown accessories cause the difference:-

TYPE —-———— EDITOR — ACTUAL
power --————— 1315 — 1715
toughness --———- 1490 — 1927
vitality --————— 1319 — 1294
precision --———— 1019 — 1148
ferociity --————— 0 —-- 300
cond damage —-——- 0 —-- 257

armour —-————- 2761 — 3138
health --————— 14835 — 14585
crit chance --———- 4.9 —-- 18.4
crit damage —-——- 150 —- 170
healing power —-— 465 —- 791

I don’t really know what numbers I should be aiming for – was just trying for some toughness, healing and damage – trying to be a combat healer – yet survive if ambushed by a lone player.

I didn’t know about the PvP lobby – i’ll defintely try that out

Just a report from EB that the bug was in both walls of Veloka tower this evening – UK time.

As the ‘clicker’ who started this thread with a cry for help – here is a big thank you to everyone and an update on my progress.

This morning I solo’ed my first camp as a non-clicker – just using keyboard made it so much easier. Keys still need optimising and I still glance at the 6-0 keys but when my mouse arrives I’ll use the suggestions from posters here to find new bindings that work for me.

About mouse – just ordered Redragon Perdition – not because it seems the best – but it seems a safe choice – and I’ve never used or even seen a gaming mouse before.

As for how I stopped clicking – 3 steps as others have suggested
1 – spent 2 hours in PvE and EB – was a nightmare – lots of choice words and hard to find keys – was completely exhausted.
2 – next day spent an hour in PvE – Plains of Ashford and Blazeridge Steppes – seemed much easier going and even managed a couple of Hero Points.
3 – this morning tried to solo a heavily reinforced camp but got slaughtered. Then tried a newly flipped camp and it fell so easily- fastest I have ever taken one – complete suprise for me – thought it would take weeks

Still a lot to do – especially learning about traits, weapons armours signets runes and how to balance it all – perhaps even crafting stuff. Then the lengthier but still fun part – learning about different classes and how to defeat them or at least survive for a while against them.

For non-clickers – this is how fighting is for many of us clickers. My team mates probably wondered what Malak is doing there – standing still and do nothing in this large battle, we are getting slaughtered and he’s doing flip-all nothing. Truth is, my cursor would have ‘vanished’ and without a cursor us clickers are virtually paralysed. I even thought of modding cursor so it looked large glowing pulsating arrow with trails so it wouldn’t get lost in the chaos of battle.
Anyhow, i don’t need cursor for fighting now – thank you all

Tom.6478:

I may be a little bit late to this thread.

But wow I am a almost a mirror image of you, and …yes, I use my mouse to use skills, and even my movement.

Believe me, I’m well aware this is not the optimum way to go.

I have close friends that tell me to practice using the keyboard. But its no use. If you never learned to type when you were young and you are my/your age, that kind of thing may be possible if you want to put in the time, but way more trouble than its worth.

After all, this is a game. We or anyone doesn’t want to make it some kind of chore just to play.

For some or even most, quick fingers are easy, but for someone like me, its just not possible.

Having said all of that. You can still be decent. I can solo camps ( yes I know that’s not that big of a deal, but I enjoy it )….well at least most of the time.

The key for me is the build….and my build is unconventional. No pro would ever use my build. But when you don’t have quick fingers and can’t dodge, you need a different type of build.

I guess what I’m trying to say, don’t rely on meta builds that you see on the net. Those builds assume you do have quick fingers.

I have tried many 5 star builds, and failed with them. I’m sure they are fine builds, but not for someone like me.

My only other advice, buy/craft the very best armor/weapons….and sigils/runes…….by the way having the right sigils and runes can make a huge difference.

All advice here is well intentioned and may even work for you…I hope it does. If not, don’t rely on meta builds, make your own that fits you. You may never be a pro, but you will get by.

Welcome to our thread – amazing answers here – really practical as well.

Uncanny we are so alike – must be a many more out there like us.

Yes, from mouse to keyboard such stress – nearly went crazy last night making change – i’ve spent over 1200 hours in game and been blissfully happy using mouse until a few days when I realized something had to change – for level 80 in WvW i’m clearly well below average.

I’ll give keyboard and gaming mouse a few weeks – hopefully my brain is wired to learn it. So far some improvements but a long way to go – new gaming mouse should help.

About soloing camps – its still a big deal to me – did my first one just before Alpine Borderlands closed down – seemed like coming of age – wonderful feeling – kept doing them till AB was gone – used to take me 5 mins or more – still does – even easy ones. That was first time i used a build but didn’t understand how it worked – just copied from website. Then I got Dragon Hunter build – lost web links and couldn’t understand how to set them or tune them myself – information overload. With the advice from here I’ll soon be able to make my own builds like you do.

About crafting, i’m only level 100 jeweler. Yet most in my old guild were experts and really helped guild with it. Crafting armour weapons does sound the way to go – a lot to learn there to but sounds fun. Guess for a while I’ll have to try and buy.

Just noticed, some of my equipment doesn’t even have slots filled

Some more fantastic posts just arriving – detail is amazing – also some from not so young players like us – all the best

Boreal.9826:

Lots of good suggestions here.

The main thing is the skill clicking, so I’ll focus on that. It really does set a low ceiling for your overall ability. Commit yourself to using the keyboard for your abilities. Spend some time in easy PvE to get the hang of it. It’s not easy to make the change, but it’ll happen and you’ll be very glad you did.

My wife used to be a skill clicker (like 2 years ago), on an Elementalist, no less, which is probably the most difficult class. We’re exclusively WvWers, so you can imagine her challenges. She tried to change, but found it extremely frustrating each time and reverted back to her comfort zone.

So, I finally unbound her turning keys (they are unnecessary) and mapped those to left/right strafe. This also frees up 2 very accessible keys. Doing that pretty much forced her to change. Like I said, it wasn’t easy and she had a few choice words for me.

A few weeks after that, however, and she was literally a wizard at using her keybindings, and the mouse for movement. Like far better than I am. lol

You are certainly right along with others about its better using the keyboard than mouse.

I can understand your wife’s choice words – i’ve used a few tonight – spent 2 hours in EB and i’m mentally drained – couldn’t even kill 2 NPCs and was killed very quickly by players.

On the other hand some major improvements. Now use a key to swap weapons, a key to target players instead of trying locate them and click them with the mouse. Things are coming together but hitting the right spell keys is still tough to master.

Once my gaming mouse arrives then i’ll experiment with keyboard mappings etc and can only get better.

Sirendor.1394:

It really depends on a lot of factors, most of which have been debated already by the other answers but I’ll give a quick overview to make it systematic. Since you’re not familiar with the concepts used by WvW players allow me to explain.

1. Playstyles: roaming – zerging:

• The main playstyles in WvW are known as roaming and zerging. Roaming is mainly focused “small scale” combat (everything between 1-10 players). Zerging on the other hand is “large scale” combat, where you follow the commander or play in a group of 20 – 50 people. Depending on the playstyles your preferred class and build will be extremely important.
• For roaming people often try to find a class/build that is versatile, meaning that it is in general useable in different ways and allows you to turn around the situation very fast (for example being able to mitigate damage, deal large amounts of damage yourself and still escape when the situation becomes too heated). Mobility or the ability to navigate the field of battle in a flash is key to roaming.
• For zerging you will be aiming at more group support and using AoE spells (Area of Effect in order to damage other opposing zergs or big groups of players). Playstyles generally occupied in a zerg are those of frontline and backline. The frontline tries to force the enemy lines to break by going melee. The backline tries to deal as much damage as possible from a slightly longer range. Support comes in the form of both controlling enemies, buffing (might, swiftness, regeneration…), and applying healing.

2. Classes

• Some classes will serve better for roaming and others will serve better for zerging.
• I suggest for roaming you take a look at warrior – mesmer – guardian – thief – engineer, in my opinion these are the easiest to play with as a roamer. If you can access their elite specialisations, be sure to check them out as well (revenants herald is strong aswell).
• For zerging generally guardians, warriors, elementalists, necromancers are very useful assets.

3. Builds

• In each class certain builds are made especially for roaming and zerging. Metabattle is as suggested by others a good place to start out.
• You need to take good care of 2 things especially:
  - Your traits. Traits will give you options to enhance certain skills, certain class mechanisms and whatnot.
  - Your gear. Armour and weapons come with stats, and sigils and runes have a serious impact on your competitive performance. Berserker stats are a favourite for many roamers, sigil of energy, sigil of fire, sigil of air are extremely useful.

4. Occupying strategic positions

• As I said, mobility is a gigantic asset in WvW. Once you become an expert at your class and build and learn to counter other classes in a fight… there is much more to learn. For one strategically occupying the playfield. The playfield is rather big so always use it to your favour. Being shot at from a distance? Find an obstacle to hide behind and lure the enemy. Always keep in mind an escape route in case you might be set upon by more enemies than you originally expected.
• In a zerg you might also make use of this. For example if you are playing a backline class/build, you can look for a place that is defensible against melee rushes and still allows you to wreak havoc on the enemy.

I hope this helps! As you maybe guessed I have a lot of experience in the field of roaming, both solo and in groups. See you around!

Thank you, a fantastic amount of detail here and clearly I still don’t understand a lot of the terminology. For instance i thought Roamers were lone players who ambushed people and took camps.

Systematic is just what I need – so much info can be confusing but just reading this posts plus other posts and web links has clarified a lot of things today.

I did used to play with my Guardian in a Zerg once, i just shadowed the commander and tried to keep her and our nearby guildies alive so they could kill the enemy. Its embarassing to think of now – i didn’t really have a clue what I was doing just pressing buttons, watching if their health improved, and rezzing people. Also I never thought in terms of front line or back line – to me it was often just chaos so shadowing our leader seemed to make sense. By the way, our zerg never used team speak – just chat from our leader and i often saw that too late.

I just realised today that spells put down almost randomly or in panic can nerf other spells put down by my allies – perhaps thats why i was kicked from the small group the other day.

Also i didn’t know that i needed a different build for small groups or for zergs – i’ll have to get this sorted as well.

The system you suggest should help put things in perspective because there is a huge amount to learn and practice – thank you

Aggrostemma.1703:

Huh, Malkom if you wanna buy a gaming mouse have a look at the Redragon Perdition mouse… It’s made in China but i’ve never seen a mouse with this durability… I use mine since a year and a half now and it has no problems at all… My friend just uses his third Naga. Also if you are a lefty try Logi g300… They are also very good!

Good luck!

Thank you, the Redragon Perdition now looks the gaming mouse for me – they are for sale here in UK on eBay and get many good reviews on Amazon. They even cost a lot less than a used Naga i was thinking of buying.

Last night in EB we also saw that wall bug in a tower

illenos.5134:

1. use a specialization
2. use keybindings
3. roll your head over the keyboard

Just kidding. Playing PvP could help you, but most of the WvW builds won’t work in PvP because of the bufffood and so on.

If you are playing dragonhunter something like this could help you: http://tinyurl.com/gm9qennw or something with “Rune of Speed”. The build seems to be rather easy but it takes a lot of reaction time and skill to get the most out of it. I’ve used it to wreck other players after I’ve played it for 15 min + but you should be somewhat of a guardian pro if you want to do this (it’s easy to counter).
WvW small scale fights are nothing but composition and training, training, training, training. If you would like to take all the time needed: go for it! Otherwise: just stop it!

To improve: just run into 1on1s and give your best. You’ll improve with every fight. Make the best out of it and enjoy it.

For me WvW and GW2 is dead, so I will head over to another game, but those are the best tips I could give you for any class. Just do it and learn something new with every fight.

Thank you for the ideas, tried head on keyboard before, not sure if it was better or worse – despair

Tried your Dragon Hunter link but its not working now but thanks for Rune of Speed idea.

Sad you are leaving game, know how you feel as its been depressing since last year. This last weekend though EB was nearly full and we are tier 8, although our side only mustered about 25, not like old Alpine Borderland days. All the best.

Thank you everyone for the fantastic advice and details – its made the game much more interesting for me and given me somethings to aim for. By the way, I’ve died about a 1200 times with this Guardian over 668 hours – nearly all in WvW.

There is definitely no more mouse clicking for me – just keyboard – I’ll be ordering a gaming mouse in a couple of days – just got to research then choose one within my price range. Anyhow tonight and for a while I’ll be in EB, going after camps or perhaps just fighting NPCs by myself if I’m truly useless, but will see how the keyboard training goes.

Next is the builds, need to understand how they work and what role I’’m aiming for. Guess a lot to learn here as I still don’t understand things like condition damage etc. Need to think a lot more about bursts and defence than just damage and toughness.

Once I’m more comfortable with the keyboard and builds then I’ll try PvP – really looking forward to that. Only went in once, rezzed someone, then came back out.

In the mean time I need to identify what class my opponents are, what we can both do, and how to spot what they are going to do next – probably the hardest thing for me – I’ll try to start watching particular classes in our parties and see what they do.

Think i need to make a logbook as easy to forget this stuff – i’m also saving this thread to disk.

P.S. so glad I asked for help – last year when our guild went, then Alpine Borderlands went, it seems like a depression set in – now something to aim for. Perhaps might even look for a guild.

My fighting against other players is such a shambles that I’m not sure how to improve it – by the way I’m a 61 year old guy and have never had fast reactions. Also I don’t really have instinct for weapons spells etc. I have been playing WvW for 18 months now so not a complete newbie.

A few days ago I joined someone to take camps in EB and on the way we met an ‘Elite’ player who killed me in 30s but took over 4 mins to beat my partner. When I arrived back my partner was finished off so I attacked the Elite player and he killed me in 10 secs. Frankly I don’t know what class he was or how he attacked me – it happened so fast. I was Dragon Hunter but have now gone back to combat healer setup with tougher armour, better healing but less DPS – at least I might be able to help keep my team mates alive.

After that fight my partner said he uses just keyboard for fighting whereas I use the mouse for clicking spells etc and just use keyboard mostly for movement. Perhaps a gaming mouse and a lot of practice with it might help me?

I thought the problems might be my slow reactions and lack of battle sense but now I think its also my poor understanding of weapon armour mechanics etc. A few days ago I was a kicked from a 3 man group because I didn’t put down the buffs they needed – I still don’t understand what they meant – acronyms .

WvW is still fun although I need to improve but where to start and what to focus on?
Would doing PvP help me?

Nozzle.8031:

Basically 90% of FoW is on holidays or doing real life stuff over the Christmas/new year period, even our american guys are away mostly, will get back to normal in next week or so ( hopefully) though again majority have gotten bored of the WvW state as it is now ( dying game mode).

Thank you for the persepective on this – the large holiday lull makes sense – hopefully they’ll be back soon.

Nozzle.8031:

And also to Rex, its ok for now, since we gone up its given you a break form having to take back a fully tier 3 UW bl every morning, and to say it carried us isnt quite right, FoW got mostly lazy and lost peopel to pve or quit playing since HoT. before we would always be competitive or most tick during EU daytimes too, can/could also compete in tier 8 fairly well too, we cant compete with WsR prime time zergs/guilds but then its only for 4-5 hours a day, they not populated for other 19-20 hours as a rule + no night cap either, hence RoS always beating them if they playing that given week…… But meh wvw dead all round as a rule certainly not as good as use to be, i struggle to find any motivation to stay in there now a days……almost feels a waste of 2.5-3k wvw playtime on FoW, but then again i just remember old times

Thats great info about WsR, I never thought of it that way, was too focussed on the imediate instead of the whole 24 hours.

In the old times, Alpine borderlands, our old commander didn’t worry about being outgunned by large UW BT zergs, we just used to keep switching maps – hit and run – keep taking things – was really fun. Not sure why, perhaps size or complexity, but the Desert borderlands seem to turn a lot of us off.

Dawdler.8521:

No way to find out how many there are, but if you join late in a match and you dont taxi in by friends to a populated instance, forget about it. You will land in a low populated crap instance everyone has already abandoned probably because its been completely unbalanced for a while.

The best instances you will find is right on match reset, the very first in line.

Thank you for the info about servers(or lack of info) and when best to play.

I often feel guilty about going into EotM because our FoW server currently has so few of players that often people are waiting for help to arrive. Anyhow I did found some fantastic multi Zerg battles on EotM a few weeeks ago.

I went into EotM yesterday for some action as EB was just about dead.

Got a shock though, at our spawn point – just 2 of us – no commander tags and no green dots on mini-map – waited a while but no one else showed up so left.

No idea how many EotM instances there are – any way to find out?

Mitz.5741:

Auto upgrades wont change much if a player still doesn’t need to do anything to start the upgrade (tho you could cap the camps…i guess that would work)

And…fow, you dont get to complain…You chose to let your nightcap carry you into T8.
Not having players during day time is your fault !

About the upgrades, I agree – players need to do something and it feels as if the auto upgrades have dumbed things down. I used to like choosing which upgrades to do as it made me feel even more attached to the building.

About the FoW nightcap – I hate the term ‘nightcap’ as those players are just in a different time zone and its daylight to them. When I used to come in really early those players were still about and were soon getting ready for their bedtime. Now of course without those FoW Asian time zone players then FoW would probably be bottom of tier 9.

Since the Alpine Borderlands were retired it does seem that a lot of FoW European time zone players have left. Something must be wrong because many of us(all servers) are addicted to WvW and so there must have a strong reason for leaving or at least for not playing WvW.

By the way, there were times when FoW was holding its own during European daylight against the dreaded Blacktide and Underword even though they often used to kick our backsides – happy days

Not sure if its just the holiday season but our tier and especially our side seems almost dead – we are FoW tier 8 – and these past few weeks our side hardly has any players in WvW.

Two nights ago a couple of our commanders came into EB looking for action- but hardly any players around so one commander commented ‘the game is dead, as usual’.

Last night we had 3 commanders(tags not showing) and 2 players (i’m just a player).
This is demoralising but i keep turning up hoping things will get better.

The other sides don’t seem to have that many players either although perhaps I’m just unlucky and miss the action – I’m European timezone . I do use the wvwintel.com website to monitor things but when I get in the action seems to have passed.

By the way, i’m still quite a low level player, less agile than a dolyak, can usually take camps single handedly in EB but no hope with towers – so struggling to find something to do especially when the other 2 sides dominate the map and we control nothing.

I did find some action this morning – map was dead – just 2 of us – an opposition player and myself – fighting over 2 camps – i lost every time – but still fun.

My question – is there anything on the horizon that looks likely to improve WvW player numbers on lower tiers? (we all need hope)

Zioba.6182:

Did you like WvW before HoT? Yes? Then don’t come back.
Keep the memorys of the good old days and the WvW you liked or even loved in your heart. Many ppl you played with may have quit.
WvW is in the worst state ever and my heart is bleeding everyday i see this mess.

I fully agree, so hard to understand how it came to this bitter shambles.

I’m on T8 and the group I played with earlier this year are all gone. Nearly all the familiar names are gone to. Ocassionally see a name in EB, EotM or HoT – though becoming rarer.

Most of us remaining, who loved the earlier WVW go to EB but its often empty and you can see players standing, probably waiting for others to turn up – its sad seeing a single green dot just waiting – however sometimes a group forms for a short time and it can seem like the old times except just one good map EB so no jumpimg between maps to outwit the opposition.

The new borderlands are huge and very complex so if you don’t enter with a group you would have a hard time finding or catching them up – I’ve tried many times and gave up after 20 minutes being alone. Perhaps joining a new Guild might help in this respect

There is a lot of action in EotM, still large zergs and good fights but of course its not the same aim as old Borderlands where the emphasis was on winning the server.

Personally I wish I had never bought HoT because for me GW2 is about WvW and the current WvW is not for me. Not sure if I will still be here if or when it improves.

My suggestion. don’t buy HoT unless you want the masteries – just login and see how it goes for you. Sadly the old days are gone so just be grateful you were there.

Vikkela.7261:

The game saves a different build for WvW and PvE, so retrait once when you go into WvW the same way you did earlier

Thank you – I didn’t know that either – thats really good news.

Such a lot to learn – no wonder I rarely beat anyone 1 v 1.

I’ve just realized that the longbow doesn’t equip or seem to work in WvW, either in EB or EotM

It works great in PvE, Silverwastes though

Mortifer.2946:

Open Hero panel, go to Build Tab – in the third trait line choose Dragonhunter.
And it will work!

Its working now – I would never have found this – thank you so much

Hello

I’ve just managed to get DH specialisation and have bought a longbow (Assassin’s Pearl Stringer) but I cannot use it. The longbow build is greyed out and I cannot equip it.

My Guardian still shows as Guardian and not DH – I’m not sure what to expect and feel like a newbie.
Perhaps I need to complete something else?

What am i doing wrong?